Sixteen comments

Bonnie Kate

This is one of my favorite tunes, it lends itself to gigantic amounts of variation. I left out the variations as this would be the standard session setting of it. Some of the variations would be as follows

Coleman made a famous recording of this & played it in the following order. Treating each variation as a four bar part

A (as noted in the abc’s one time through)
A
1a
3a
B (as noted in the ABC’s one time through)
B
B
B

3a
1a
2a
3a
2b
2b
2b
2b

2a
3a
3a
4a
2b
2b
2b
2b/ ===>Jennie’s Chicken’s

Burke played the B-Part like 3b, which is fresh sounding but changes the acc. chord to "C" instaed of "G" so you should warn your guitarist/bouzouki/piano etc.

Weird notes I know but feel free to send me an email if you have any questions.

I’ve heard many accordian players who play for feisanna play this as a single reel with none of the Coleman variations. Which I think is more suited to a session as well, you never know when your going to go to different variations & muddy up the sound. But It’s a great showpiece nonetheless.

Bonnie Kate - variation by Sean Ryan

I’ve recently come across a sheetmusic transcription (dated I think sometime before 1975) of Sean Ryan’s recording of Bonnie Kate on Avoca 33-AV-121, including all his ornamentation. I haven’t heard the recording so I don’t know how fast he took it or what other instruments were involved. Perhaps a collector of old records can provide this information? Anyway, here is the Sean Ryan version converted into abc:

The Bonny Lass Of Fisherrow

This was written by Scottish composer Daniel (or Donald) Dow (1732-83). I prefer the original version which is a single reel in C major entitled "The Bonny Lass Of Fisherrow". It’s one of those Scottish tunes the Irish should have just left the way it was IMO. The original has a nice flingy feel to it which I feel that the Irish version has lost:

I bet you didn’t know that I live in Fisherrow. It’s the part of Musselburgh on the west side of the River Esk just as you leave Edinburgh(it’s more or less a continuation). It used to be a busy fishing port and the "bonny lass" was probably one of the "fisher lasses" who worked at the harbour. The fishing days have gone now and the boats now work from Port Seton a few miles down the coast. The harbour is still used but it’s more like a marina nowadays with lots of small yachts.
I have played this tune myself but it’s not too common in Scottish sessions. I’ve not tackled the Irish version as yet.

John, wow! I didn’t know where the place actually was. I’m going to introduce this to the people at my session. They’re always looking for cool settings of common tunes, like Micho Russell’s Mason’s Apron, Coleman’s Merry Blacksmith, Maid Behind The Bar in C, Sally Gardens in D, Pigeon on the Gate in G, that sort of thing. They’ll love this one.

Re: Bonnie Kate

"Bonnie" is an Anglo Gaelic word that comes from the Irish word "bainne" for "milk" which is cognate with "bán" meaning "white" and also "bean" meaning "woman." The word is an ancient European root word found in the German "von" meaning "of" which may originally have conveyed the sense of ‘motherly origination,’ which may be why the word is essential to surnames. The most famous "bonnie" was Prince Charles who failed to resecure the throne of Scotland for the Stuarts from the Hanovers. In the wake of Culloden, the Gaels were systematically slaughtered and disenfranchised in a protracted genocidal campaign that persists in sneaky forms to this day. The appreciation of Irish women in Irish America, ("Bonnie Kate") for example, has been somewhat successful in slowing the Hanoverian agenda to breed Gaelic and Celtic peoples generally out of existence.